Chapter 210 - Not an oyster

[One with Suffering] ♢ : For each % of Health lost during a singular battle, gain a 1% increase to all stats except Mana and Health until the end of combat, lose 1% for each % of Health healed.

It’s still vague what ‘all stats’ is, but it includes at least Strength, Agility and Speed, which all also give Stamina on the side. Just doubling that through a fight is big, but what I’m looking at here is the huge loophole this skill has.

‘Lose 1% for each % of Health healed’.

There’s this neat thing about the false immortality runes; they are not healing.

I’ve used them enough to know exactly what they do, they restore my body to a previous healthy state. It’s not ‘healing’. So if I’m correct in my assumptions… I’m not limited to the 99% health lost like everybody else is. I can accumulate this buff to crazy heights, and then use my Demon form to destroy everything.

The caveat being that I’m not completely certain the [False immortality] loophole really works, and it’s a locked skill. So if I misunderstood anything in how this all functions, I’ll be stuck with this lukewarm skill which most of the time would do nothing instead of being a giant improvement to my Demon form.

And the last classless skill to consider is the one about divine essences…

[Quintessential] ♢ : Improve the range and clarity of your Mana senses for each possessed Divine Essence.

Currently the maximum range of Sofia’s Mana senses was about two thousand meters if there were no obstacles, and of those, the clear information and sight was really only her direct surroundings. Depending on how much this improved, she might even become able to read her enemies mana movements in combat and anticipate their spells. Or be able to ‘see through everything’ on a large scale instead of just near her. And since she already had 6 Divine Essences and would have to get more to evolve VPPV, this felt like perhaps the easiest choice of the whole bunch.

“I think I actually want to keep [Sprint], comparing it to everything else, the multiplier is just too high to dismiss. So I have three spots and a fourth one to come after the specialization.”

For clarity’s sake, Sofia wrote down a simplified version of the skills.

[Lifting] : Flight speed? (uncertain)

[Pretentious armor] ♢  : Damage spreading / mitigation? (also uncertain)

[Zealot] : Deep questing buff.

[Radiance] : Healing bonus.

[Death resistance] ♢ : Insurance against bleeding out, poison, and the likes.

[Sniper] : Be very sneaky from afar.

[Meditation] : Train skills during downtime without mana.

[Sculpting] : Better and faster bonecrafting.

[Unrelenting] : Resist movement impairments up to a point.

[Crystalized] ♢ : Produce own mana crystal / thinking speed drugs.

[Shining] : Brighter light to spread rot.

[Safekeeping] : Mana makes stuff harder to break, skeleton synergy?

[Evasion] : Evade easier, thinking speed bonus on top but requires danger.

[One with Suffering] ♢ : Cheating with runes, huge Demon synergy.

[Quintessential] ♢ : Mana sight progressive upgrade.

“And I can only pick four? I’m glad I took that [Citrinitas] gem now because settling on only one would be a real nightmare.”

Sofia walked around the room holding her small bone tablet with the skills written on it.

“First of all, I think the Draconic skills can go, I’m not sure of what they do exactly and it doesn’t seem that strong anyway…”

Two lines disappeared from the bone tablet.

“[Zealot] is not bad but too limited in its use, so it can go. [Radiance] I’m leaving up for now, strengthening the healing from the constructs is very strong. I could also try to alter [Heal undead] until it’s less shitty and make it even better with this.”

[Death resistance] doesn’t do enough, and neither does [Meditation]... [Sculpting] is nice but the bone armor already repairs itself quite fast and my bone craftsmanship is already not too bad. I can do without these three.

I already have [Blessing of the Deep] helping against the worst status effects so the value of [Unrelenting] is diminished a lot, it’s another pass. And [Shining] is too situational.

So I’m left with these seven.

[Radiance]; [Sniper]; [Crystalized] ♢; [Safekeeping]; [Evasion]; [One with Suffering] ♢ ; [Quintessential] ♢.

“Say, Mister Scribe. Since you could get me a list of skills which work with holy light… Can I know whether a [False immortality] activation resets the [One with Suffering] bonus?”

Despite waiting a bit for an answer, nothing came of that. But Sofia still had more cards to play.

“Then… Please give me a ‘list of known skills and wild magic capable of’ healing!”

This is exactly the same syntax he used before except I replaced holy light with healing.

[Please wait.]

“So it was just a matter of what and how I ask exactly… So many moving parts to what the system will and will not do. How much hidden stuff is still to discover? Ah, but most of it will be in Draconic now…”

[List of known skills and wild magic capable of applying healing:

‘Eclipse Skeleton’

‘Spine of the Black Sun’

‘Heal Undead’

‘Maiden Banshee’

‘Bone Dominus’

‘The Book of Skeletons’]

No surprise this time. And the rune is not there, hence it is extremely likely I can accumulate the bonus from [One with Suffering] to 300% or more by stacking the runes. So it’s hard to justify not taking it with such an effect.

I think I can forget about [Radiance] for now, and only reconsider it if and when I manage to upgrade [Heal Undead] enough. It would clash with [One with Suffering] anyway, and the book’s skeletons don’t need healing half the time. As long as it’s sunny. And I don’t either, because the runes block that. But still, it’s likely that I’ll end up picking that one later anyway, maybe when [Bone dominus] gets to level 3.

I still need to get rid of two more.

Sofia first learned [Safekeeping] to try out the effects firsthand, as advertised it made all things infused with her mana sturdier, even the skeletons. But it turned out the effect was quite underwhelming. Be it the book’s skeletons or Pareth who she just re-summoned from one of the leftover Stone Ogre bodies, most of their mana actually did not come from her. As such the advantage they gained through this effect was lackluster. She could directly give them more, and that would start to actually make a visible difference when she filled them with tens of thousands of mana points, but then there were better uses of her mana.

With this out of the way, it left five skills for four spots. After some deliberations with herself, she decided against picking [Crystalized]. The idea of her body producing pearls from who knows where was just too weird. And what if the pearl took a full year to form? Then she would be forever stuck with this locked skill for nothing. It wasn’t a risk she was willing to take right now. She had also debated taking the Master’s recommendation, [Friendly Fire], but it didn’t feel as good as any of her current picks. So, after way too much time spent searching, filtering, and agonizing over the thousands of available options, Sofia settled on her four new classless skills.

[Sniper]; [Evasion]; [One with Suffering] ♢, and [Quintessential] ♢.

She didn’t feel any change after taking [Sniper] and [Evasion], but it was a nice surprise that [Evasion] was already level 32. Taking [Quintessential] was a much bigger deal, her Mana Senses improving tremendously as soon as she picked it. They were still confined to the small room, the Ranking Spire likely blocking her from sensing what was beyond, but she could see the mana around her much better than ever before.

She could even see Pareth’s mana flow through his bones without even trying to.

Pareth had also benefited from the trial, as Sen had explained, his stats were quite a lot higher than they used to be as a basic Stone Ogre. It was a drop in the ocean compared to the total Health he could get from his blessing when he occupied a huge body like the Alpha Ogre, but it was nice to have. This would prevent him from falling behind in the long run, especially with his mana which had doubled, jumping from twenty to forty thousands.

“Actually, I changed my mind. What do I need discretion for? I throw big explosive lightning bolts. I’ll just take the healing now.”

Sofia replaced [Sniper] with [Radiance], which started at level 26.

That was all for now, she would learn [One with Suffering] after freeing the slot thanks to the specialization. And only after I double-check with Sen that it will work as I think. I don’t want to waste a hard-earned skill slot! I fought a genuine God to get these!

“And last but not least, the Specialization!”

Sofia had gotten all the time to think about what she wanted out of this, it was a long process of back and forth with herself, but she was relatively confident in her choice.

Her second specialized skill would be [Sanctity].

It being a Saint exclusive passive skill already made it desirable, but the real deciding factor was how it actually massively helped both offense and defense by allowing bigger bolts. The other choices were all fine too, and [Mana manipulation] especially might have been a better choice in the long run, but ultimately she decided against going with it.

It’s just like the [Emerald cypher], nothing but a shortcut. Shortcuts are nice, but to specialize in them? I don’t need that. I’m already going astonishingly fast by all metrics, it’s time to acknowledge that.

[Skill understanding sufficient. Skill specialization point ‘(Classless)’ has been used]

[Skill already at maximum level. Please select a skill path, you may enter a cumulative one level debt to be offered new paths (previously unlocked paths may still be selected)]

The first available Path appeared before Sofia’s eyes.

It was all in Draconic.

“No, please… I… Ah…”

Sofia had to lay down on the bed.

“This is going to take a while…”

Author note:

"Wait, this chapter is two hours early?"

Yes! Because you're getting two chapters today! The specialization chapter is coming at the usual posting time, and oh boy is it a big fellow. Time to grab the popcorn!

( ・∀・)っ旦

With this we can get back into the main story tomorrow, isn't that nice? (｀• ω •´)